Historical Novels

"Was ever music at once so sweet and so sad as the echo of his receding steps ?"

"It is singular the charm that youth flings over both its exaggeration and its selfishness — perhaps they are pardoned for their very unconsciousness. Its expectations are unreasonable; but they are entertained in such good faith, that we first envy and then excuse the state of mind which admits them, and forgive their present folly, from our conviction of their coming disappointment. It is our own sense of superiority — the conscious superiority of knowledge, dear bought by experience, that makes us thus charitable. In youth, too, selfishness is divested of its most obnoxious part — its calculation ; it seems thoughtlessness— again we pity, pardon, and fancy that amendment which never comes."

"[From Madame de Mercœur (Henriette)]: The truth is, ma mignonne, we have nothing else to do — talking is the business of the idle. We do not talk out of the careless gaiety of the heart, which indulges its hopes, or expresses its feelings — we talk for amusement ; we are not interested in the doings of others, but we are entertained — always supposing, as the narrator may very well contrive, there is something a little absurd in them. We live together in society — strangers, rivals, and enemies, hiding the envy and hate which it would be impolitic to exhibit. We care nothing for each other; society could not exist a day now, did the dislike or the indifference rise to the surface. Talking is an ingenious contrivance for hiding all this. An agreeable compliment conceals carelessness ; a pointed phrase gives vent to many a suppressed emotion ; and we can veil our perfect disregard to what people feel, by a most studied attention to what they say. I can assure you, talking is more than an amusement — it is a necessity."

"It is the man who is feared — not the man who is loved — that succeeds in the world. Refuse a favour, and all your gracious smiles, your kind words, aye, and even your really kind feelings, are utterly forgotten. But be necessary ; let men have aught to hope from you ; forward in any way their interests — and it matters not how you do it ; be harsh, abrupt, insolent, and it will only be "your way." People would, to be sure, rather obtain their object by trampling upon you ; but sooner than not obtain it, they will let you trample upon them. Civility is not only troublesome, but it is waste. To vary the old simile, people in general are like sweet herbs — they require crushing, not for their sakes, but for your own."

"Absence, like every other pang, weakens by repetition ; the friend who has once returned in safety may return so again ; we soon draw precedents from the past. She had to say farewell for the first time, and whatever we do not know, we always exaggerate."

"The appearance of your lover — known to be such — among your intimate friends, is embarrassing enough to any girl, who anticipates their remarks and foresees their railleries."

"The great popularity of the Stuarts — certainly more allied to personal causes than we can at present calculate — is a curious fact. It was not one of those feelings drawn from hoar antiquity, when habit has become religion. No — their ascension to the throne was of recent occurrence. Neither were they grafted into the heart by that enthusiasm which, more than all others, dazzles and delights, viz., military renown. No victories, no conquests, excited the imagination, and confounded theirs and the glory of England together. Their reigns had been most pacific, and their few warlike attempts unsuccessful ; and yet what devotion and attachment they inspired ! — fortune, liberty, and life, were yielded, and joyfully, in their cause. Wrongs were forgiven ; violated privileges and outraged laws forgotten ; and nothing but the still mightier spirit of fanaticism could have been opposed with any success to the spirit of loyalty. It was Charles's bigotry that cost him his crown. If he had given up the bishops, uncurled his hair, and spoken through his nose, he might have been an absolute monarch in all but name. As it was, he contrived to die a martyr, and to be mourned with a degree of personal affection which one, now-a-days, scarcely expects from the nearest and dearest friends."

"The bustle of a departure suspends everything but itself;"

"Now, one may be very well content to renounce a lover, but it a very disagreeable to have him taken away."

"Perhaps there is not a situation in the world so confidential as pacing up and down some shady walk, arm in arm. The freedom of that freest element, the air, communicates itself to the thoughts ; the green obscurity of the closing branches over head reassures timidity ; the motion gives its own activity, and dissipates the nervous restlessness ever attendant on excitement. Your face is necessarily a little averted from your companion's, though not enough to prevent your marking the attention given. Then the chance which led to your choice of subject was so accidental, the discourse has proceeded so gradually, that restraint has melted away from the lip, and reserve from the heart, almost before the speaker is aware that the secret soul has found its way in words."

"The superstition which once taught us to believe that prayer and penance brought down their blessing on some beloved one, was at least a kindly one. The affections of earth grew at once more tender and more spiritual, thus elevated and purified by an intercourse with heaven. The court was dissipated, worldly, false, — even as human nature has ever been from the beginning, and will be even unto the end; but there, also, human nature asserted its better part, and its deeper feelings and had its higher hopes. Many a young and lovely woman, whose feet knew but the pleasant paths of prosperity, and whose ear was familiar but with the voice of the flatterer, would voluntarily offer up a portion of her time, as her holiest sacrifice ; and on the straw pallet, and in the serge robe, take a profound lesson of the vanities which made up ordinary existence. To these vanities, it is true, they returned ; but surely not without a stronger humility, and some thoughts which even in the world, were God's own."

"Their faults grew suddenly perceptible, and their absurdities an unfailing subject of mimicry. All these, in his hands, became singularly amusing. Francesca, who had little knowledge, and no envy, of the individuals so relentlessly caricatured, could not help being entertained. While their more intimate friends, whose competitors they were, who had a thousand small jealousies to be gratified, and divers little grudges almost unconsciously treasured up, placed no bounds to their encouragement. Still, it was a mirth that left, as sarcasm always does, its doubt and its depression. Human nature avenges itself by suspicion. First, there comes the internal and unerring whisper, As others have been used, so shall we ; and, secondly, we are in our hearts a little ashamed of our own enjoyment; we feel how contemptible it is, thus to revel in and exult over our neighbour's faults, follies, and misfortunes. Our very selfishness rebukes us."

"… ; however, like most proofs of faith, it was to be put off as long as possible."

"Francesca's was a grievance of which most of her sex have to complain ; a man's letter is always the most unsatisfactory thing in the world. There are none of those minute details which are such a solace to feminine anxiety ; the mere fact of writing always seems sufficient to content a masculine conscience."

"We talk of youth as our happiest season, because, perhaps, we do not begin to moralise upon it till it has been long past. The present sorrow always exceeds its predecessors — not so the present joy ; comparison exaggerates the one, while it diminishes the other ; and people talk of their youth as if it had not been a period of feverish sensitiveness, awkward embarrassments, many heart burnings, and an utter want of that self-reliance which alone can ensure content. It is folly to dwell on any season's peculiar happiness ; each might in turn be weighed in the balance, and found wanting."

"… ; for in truth gaiety must make some small appeal to our vanity before it is enjoyed."

"She had all the faults peculiar to very weak people — faults which are of the meanest order ; violent, for it requires strength of mind to curb emotion; obstinate, for with the obstinate opinion is made up of habit and conceit ; and cunning for cunning is the genius of the fool."

"Even in our time, when they are so many in number — things of morning, noon, and night occurrence — a letter is a delight. We never hear the postman's knock without a vague sort of hope that it is for us. A letter, too, is one of the few mysteries that yet remain — a small and a transitory one, but still a mystery, though but of a moment. We have to open it. If these are a pleasure even now, what must they have been when an epistle was an event in a life, and when rarely any but a beloved hand traced the characters ?"

"Well — audacity, oddity, and flattery, are the three graces which wake their way in modern society."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: I am persuaded that war was always meant to be the one great luxury of the human race. War calls out all our good qualities ; courage teaches a man to respect himself — and self-respect is at once the beginning and the guarantee of excellence. Besides, a campaign teaches patience, generosity, and exertion. So much for the morale; and as to the enjoyment, pardieu ! I can imagine nothing beyond the excitement of leading a charge of cavalry."

"The imagination shuns to reveal its workings, unless it can clothe them in some lovely and palpable shape, and create into existence the high romance, the mournful song, the animated canvas, or the carved marble ; …"

"None but worldly people appreciate simplicity."

"A lover owes his mistress a little jealousy. Indifference to the homage she receives may show reliance, but it is a bad compliment."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: Certainly it is pleasant to appreciate one's own perfections ; it puts one on good terms with others, by first being on such with ourselves."

"There is a story somewhere of an eastern king, whose delight it was to assemble his subjects in a glittering hall, where they were crowned with roses, and drank the purple wine from cups of gold ; but beneath them were caverns and chains. Suddenly, the floor gave way, and the guests were precipitated into the darkness below, there to meditate at leisure over their former blind enjoyment. Human life is just such a tyrant — the pleasure hides the pain ; but not long — soon, very soon, are we precipitated into the depths of experience and regret !"

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: Ah ! women like to have desperate things done on their account ; besides, people in love never calculate on probabilities."

"But the passion which gives its deep and melancholy tone to our English imaginative literature was unknown across the channel. Feeling never got beyond sentiment; and that bien arrangé. The heart's faith was but la galanterie — a term, by the bye, which our word gallantry does not translate."

"Voiture belonged to a race of poets essentially French, who sacrificed to the Graces instead of the Muses ; to whom Cupid, with his wings and arrows, was the ideal of love, and whose art of poetry consisted in epigram, tournure, readiness, and facility."

"[From The Duke of Buckingham]: Confusion is love's first symptom."

"It was curious to observe the many indications of character called forth by the spirit of gambling so unexpectedly evoked. Some pressed forward ; others hung back, as if they feared to tempt their fate without some effort at propitiation, in the way of "muttered vow and inward prayer." While one would take up a sealed billet with affected carelessness — belied, however, by the anxious eye — another could not conceal the flushed cheek and the trembling hand."

"[From the ex-Queen Christina of Sweden]: {of Rome} Yet, you must admit, that the past, with its gathered glories of many ages, exceeds the past which has only to-day?"

"Her education, it is true, had preserved her from much of the ignorant belief of her country ; but, whatever the head may be, the heart is always superstitious."

"No person is much in any particular room without having a favourite seat in it;"

"The ear long accustomed to, and therefore on its guard against, dissimulation, often catches the fact from slight indications which would pass unnoticed by the common observer."

"'Tis pity for those whose standard of love is high and ideal ; for them are prepared the downfall and the disappointment. The heart is the true sensitive plant — revolting at a touch."

"— nothing is more painful than to have a kindly anxiety treated as curiosity."

"Generally speaking, we are incredulous of the good fortune of our friends, and, even though loving them, undervalue their qualities ; the success of our greatest intimates takes us by surprise."

"The first appreciation of one's own face and figure is a very delightful feeling ; and as the youth outgrows the boy, it seems as if so much lost time had to be made up."

"No marvel that we regret our youth. Let its bloom, let its health, let its pleasures depart, could they but leave behind the singleness and the innocence of the happy and the trusting heart. The lessons of experience may open the eyes; but, as in the northern superstition, they only open to see dust and clay, where they once beheld the beauty of palaces."

"Injustice is so revolting to the young — they hear of it, they think of it, they believe in its existence, but always as of that which cannot affect themselves. It is a bitter lesson that which first brings it home."

"One proof of a great man is fitness for the circumstances in which he is placed. That talent may reasonably be doubted which is never exercised; …"

"The day passed away in that hurry which makes it seem so short, and in the many little cares, so few of which ever answer their purpose, and which yet appear so indispensable to the feminine affection from which they generally emanate."

"Well, memory is a very comfortable thing, usually adapting itself to the prejudices of the present."

"Truly, society is like a large piece of frozen water ; there are the rough places to be shunned, the very slippery ones all ready for a fall, and the holes which seem made expressly to drown you. All that can be done is to glide lightly over them. Skaiting well is the great art of social life."

"Nothing more truly proves that life is but a trial — than the pleasures which depart, the sense of enjoyment which deadens, and the disappointments which spring up at every step in our pilgrimage. Could life preserve its illusions, who would be fit to die ? Vanity of vanities is written on this side of the grave, but that we may more clearly discern that on the other shines the hope of immortality."

"Good Heaven ! when we observe what egregious nonsense other people talk, what woful follies other people commit, sure we must be tempted to turn upon ourselves and ask — "What do I do that is equally silly ?” … … Human egotism is very much exaggerated. No one in reality occupies less of our thoughts than we do ourselves. We seriously consider the qualities of others, we dilate on their folly, question curiously on the motives of their actions, and investigate all the recesses of their minds into which we can penetrate. We never do so by ourselves. Who ever sits down to think over himself? Self is the only individual we take for granted. Were the character of any one of our friends to be sketched with tolerable accuracy, we should recognise the likeness at once ; but let our own, drawn to the very life, be brought before us, we should not know it, and even when told, we should in all probability deny the acquaintance."

"[From de Joinville]: Ah ! change is a great error — the variety of existence only reminds us of its weight. Who are the happiest individuals of our acquaintance ? Those whose existence revolves in the smallest possible circle — men whose daily horizon is bounded by their dinner — women whose hope extends not beyond their knitting needles."

"Evelyn — for falsehood brings its own cowardice — was speechless."

"How odd it is to think how differently people are employed at the same time, and how sad to think how heavily the burden falls on most ! The contrast of the lot of the few with that of the many rather aggravates the misery : — why should they be thus favoured ?"

"— the genius for intrigue needs a few obstacles to stimulate its powers."